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ADDRESS 



TO THE 



FOR THE ENCOURAGEMENT OF 



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DELIVERED AT PAWTUXET, OCTOBER 17, 1821. 



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BY THE HON. TRISTAM BURGER. 



PROVIDENCE : 

MILLER AND HUTCHENS, PRINTERS. 

August.. ..1822. 




Providence, October 22, 1821. 

Sir — In obedience to a vote of the Standing Committee of the Rhode- 
Island Society for the Encouragement of Domestick Industry, a copy 
of which is annexed, we have the honour of expressing, on their behalf, 
as well as on that of the Society at large, our thanks for the excellent 
Address by you pronounced before the Society on the 17th instant, and 
of requesting a copy thereof, for the press. 
And are, with sentiments of the 

highest respect, your 

friends and fellow citizens, 

WILLIAM WILKINSON, ) 
JOHN BROWN FRANCIS, } Committee. 
WILLIAM E. RICHMOND, ) 
Hon. Tristam Burges. 

M At a Meeting of the Standing Committee of the Rhode-Island So- 
ciety, holden at Mr. Aborn's Hotel, in Pawtuxet, on the 18th of Octo- 
ber, 1821— 

Voted, That Messrs. Wilkinson, Francis and the Secretary, be a Com- 
mittee, to wait on the Honourable Tristam Burges, to express to him 
the thanks of the Committee for the highly appropriate and excellent 
Address, by him pronounced yesterday, before the Society ; and request 
of him a copy thereof for the Press." A true copy from the records. 

WM. E. RICHMOND, Sec'ry. 



Providence, June 27, 1822. 
Gentlemen, 

If, in your opinion, the following address will, in any way, be beneficial 
to the industry of our community, I am willing to submit it to your dis- 
posal. I should sooner have done this, but when I had the honour of re- 
ceiving your letter of the 22d of October last, I had determined to write 
more at large on the subject of agriculture, embracing many facts which 
it has been in my way to collect on that subject, and comprehending a 
considerable system of manuring. Other avocations have compelled me 
to postpone those projects for the present. Should any thing in this ad- 
dress seem unfriendly to agricultural men, I beg them to believe that it 
was not so intended. It was written by one born to the heritage of the 
plough, whose brightest days have been spent in studying the science 
and attempting to practice the art of agriculture. 
I am, gentlemen, very respectfully, 

TRISTAM BURGES. 

Messrs. Wilkinson, Francis and Richmond. 



The subjects of domestic]* industry are the arts 
of usefulness,. The productions of these are, all 
things needful, in food, raiment, habitation, or equi- 
page. Whatever stimulates domestick industry 
augments the quantity of the necessaries, conven- 
iences and ornaments of life. Your Society has for 
its object the encouragement of all these great and 
important arts. Of some of these, you cannot ex- 
pect from me, on the present occasion, a descrip- 
tion; or a history of them ; nor a dissertation con- 
cerning their principles or their utility. Those, 
who consume their productions, know their useful- 
ness ; those, who practice them, are masters of their 
trades ; and those, who employ their capital in 
them, know, better than I do, what is the process, 
and what is the result, of such employment. Of 
these arts, men seem to have been convinced, that 
it is necessary to have some knowledge, before 
they enter upon the practice of them ; and they 
have, accordingly, in all countries, devoted a num- 
ber of years to apprenticeships in them ; and have 
received regular instruction, with as much formal- 
ity, as young gentlemen are taught the great mys- 
teries of theology, law, or medicine. 

There is one art, of which men, either think 
themselves born masters, or that they can acquire 
a knowledge of it, without instruction. They seem 
to rely on taking it the natural way ; as the devout 
Mahomedans do a certain disease ; and regard the 
tedious process of innoculation, both as useless, and 



sinful. This is no new thing. It existed in the 
days of Columella that great Roman scholar and 
agriculturalist. In his incomparable book on hus- 
bandry he thus complains of it — " I cannot enough 
wonder why they who desire to learn eloquence are 
so nice in the choice of an orator whose eloquence 
they may imitate ; and they who search after the 
knowledge of surveying or mensuration and of num- 
bers, look out for a master of the art they delight 
in; and they who are desirous of some skill in dan- 
cing, and musick, are exceeding scrupulous in their 
choice of one to modulate their voice and teach 
them to sing agreeably ; and no less of a dancing 
master to regulate the gestures and motions of their 
body ; also they who have a mind to build send for 
architects, masons and carpenters ; and they who 
resolve to send ships to sea send for skilful pilots ; 
they who make preparations for war call for men 
who understand the art of war and are acquainted 
with military affairs ; and not to mention every par- 
ticular, in that study which every one resolves to 
prosecute, he makes use of the wisest and ablest 
director he can find ; finally every one sends for a 
person from the society and assembly of the wise to 
form his mind and instruct him in the precept of 
virtue; but husbandry alone, which without all 
doubt, is next to, and as it were near akin, to wis- 
dom, is in want of both masters and scholars. For 
hitherto I have not only heard that there are, but I 
myself have seen schools of professors ofrhetorick, 
and as I have already said of geometry and ofmusick 
or which is more to be wondered at, academies for 
the most contemptible vices, for delicately dress- 
ing and seasoning victuals, for contriving and mak- 
ing up dainty and costly dishes, for promoting glut- 
tony and luxury ; and I have also seen head dres- 
sers and hair trimmers ; but of agriculture I have 
never known any that professed themselves either 
teachers or scholars." 



Rhode-Island is favourably situated for agricul- 
ture. Its lands are various, and, most of them, fer- 
tile. Clays, sands, loams, hills, vallies and plains, 
marshes, waters and woods, are sufficiently abun- 
dant. It is washed by the sea, indented with bays 
and interlaced by rivers producing exhaustless 
quantities of fertilizing materials. The population 
of this State are industrious, intelligent, brave and 
independent. When they show themselves to their 
sister States, as they really are, they do not fail of 
ready admittance to the very first rank of respect- 
ability. Your merchants are enterprising; and 
deeply read in all the great mysteries of commerce. 
Your manufacturers, persevering and highly skil- 
ful in the application of capital, and the production 
of fabricks. Your mechanicks, masters of the the- 
ory and practice of their trades. Your profession- 
al men respectable for talents, learning and char- 
acter. Your farmers, the independent proprietors 
of the lands they cultivate, able to command capi- 
tal sufficient for the management of them, and en- 
dowed with all that skill in the great trade of agri- 
culture, which they have hitherto thought proper 
to acquire or put in practice. Here too, is such an 
union of all honest men, for the protection of life, 
liberty, and property, that, notwithstanding they 
are thought by some people in other States to be 
insecure in this, yet I dare affirm that there is no 
spot of earth in all the wide regions of the world, 
where these great rights are more freely, fully and 
securely enjoyed than they are in the State of 
Rhode-Island, by each and every person. With all 
these advantages, agriculture seems to have made 
but little progress for many years in this State. 
Our merchants have rendered it the fifth commer- 
cial State in the Union, and our manufacturers 
placed it among the first ; although our scanty ter- 
ritory would hardly make a county in some of the 
larger States. What have our agricultural men 



done ? Alas ! they, with their surplus capital, have 
built retail shops, or set up banks, or bought spin- 
dles ; so that they might teach their sons to be 
traders, or money brokers, or weavers. Rhode- 
Island was once famed for some agricultural pro- 
ductions. Narraganset horses were, next to Ara- 
bian, perhaps, the first in the world ; but the race 
is extinct. The same country was celebrated for 
cheese ; but the secret of making it is lost, or has 
been stolen by those, who, in place of it, now make 
not the very best butter. Bristol is famed for the 
production of onions ; and the island of Rhode-Isl- 
and, for that of barley ; and both deservedly so ; 
but they both owe all their success to the marine 
manure, by the ever labouring ocean, thrown upon 
their shores ; and these farmers could no more 
succeed in raising these crops, in Smithfield, or 
Cumberland, than a porpus could live and fatten 
on Nutaconkanut Hill. 

But Rhode-Island farmers are not, in this re- 
spect, sinners above all the Americans. The peo- 
ple of this country seem to have thought that farm- 
ing consisted, in clearing the land of trees and 
bushes, and then driving it with crops of grain, un- 
til it was dead. They have treated the earth like 
a step dame ; and not like a mother whose uberious 
bosom feeds and fosters her millions of children. 
It is true a spirit of improvement seems for the last 
twenty years to have gone abroad in our country. 
Some fine agricultural productions are brought for- 
ward and exhibited to the publick. So far it is 
well. I rejoice at it. But it cannot be forgotten 
that this is holy-day husbandry. Look minutely 
through the country, if you would know the state 
of agriculture. Travel like Arthur Young — see the 
farm yards and fields — observe the instruments of 
tillage, the course of crops, the system of manuring. 
I fear we shall find, we are, taken in a mass, about 
such farmers, as our forefathers were, when they 



migrated to this country. They, we know, were 
such farmers, as their fathers were when they left 
England. But all the capital improvements, in ag- 
riculture, have been made, in that country, since 
the settlement of this. 

If it were in the course of nature for the venera- 
ble pilgrims of Plymouth again to land on the 
shores of that island, they would not know the 
fields of their native country. Not many years 
before they migrated the London market was sup- 
plied with vegetables from Flanders, and the Eng- 
lish climate and soil were deemed incapable of 
producing them. At this time 14,000 acres are ap- 
propriated to gardening in the immediate neigh- 
bourhood of that metropolis, and the vegetables 
and fruit raised on those lands, are sold in that city 
for a sum little short of four millions of dollars per 
annum. The rent of land in the county of Norfolk, 
the least fertile, but the best farmed district of Eng- 
land, has increased within the memory of man, 
eight fold. The rent roll of Mr. Coke, the great 
Norfolk farmer, has, in that time, risen from five to 
40,0001. per annum. This has been done, not by 
grinding his tenants, but by enriching them; by 
granting them leases of his lands for twenty years ; 
and by giving them, in his own farming, a great ex- 
ample of the immense agricultural improvements 
which may be made, even in the sands of Norfolk, 
by industry, skill and capital. 

Scotch farming has come into existence long 
since Roger Williams paddled his canoe round Fox 
Point. In those days the Thistle was the national 
emblem of Scotland. They fought under it in war, 
and foraged upon it in peace. But the unpoetical 
farmers of Caledonia have lost all delight in pursu- 
ing the thistle's beard, with the heroes of Ossian ; 
or sleeping on the blooming hether with the buca- 
niers of Roderick Dhu. They have ploughed down 
all those things, which look so pretty, and smell so 



8 

sweet in song ; and given up those haunts of the 
muses, to plain English barley and wheat; — Dutch 
and Swedish turnips ; the clover of Flanders, and 
the Shamrock of Ireland. In the progress of these 
improvements, these men have done, what Scotch- 
men think an essential service to that country; 
but what American farmers, would think a curse to 
this — they have, by increasing a demand for la- 
bour, nearly doubled the price of it ; but these in- 
dustrious, intelligent Scotchmen, with their national 
prudence, have contrived not only to pay this aug- 
mented price of labour, but to replace all their cap- 
ital; and add to it, at least fourteen per cent, per 
annum. A farmer in the Lothains of Scotland, 
who cultivates 700 acres of land at a rent of 1/. 10s. 
sterling per acre, will, at the end of the year, have 
in his pocket, clear of all expenses, more than 
$3500. He has so much to add to his capital, and 
to enable him to extend his cultivation. 

By such means the agricultural capital of that 
country has, from year to year, and from genera- 
tion to generation, been augmenting. What it is 
now exactly, I am not prepared to state ; but, twen- 
ty-five years ago, it was, by men best acquainted 
with it, calculated at 450 millions of pounds sterling 
in the whole united kingdoms. This comprehends 
as well the circulating capital of yearly husbandry 
as that which is invested in permanent agricultural 
improvements. While English farmers have been 
raising and working this capital, we have not been 
very solicitous to copy their example. The great 
plenty of lands has induced us rather to reclaim 
new fields than to fertilize old ones. Our worn 
out fields, like our worn out horses, have been 
thrown out to die in the commons. Had we been 
as provident, as our merchants and mechanicks, we 
should have imported from England, every agricul- 
tural improvement, as they have every commercial 
and manufacturing one. 



Perhaps, in no nation of the world, has commerce 
been advanced with such rapidity, as in our own 
country, since the revolution. When the first In- 
dia ship sailed from Providence the sight was 
thronged with as much concourse and viewed 
with as much anxious admiration, as followed the 
fleet of Columbus unmooring from the shores of 
Spain. Now such things are a matter of daily oc- 
currence; and no more is thought of sailing to 
Canton by the Pacifick than used to be said of sail- 
ing round Cape Cod. Then peril and success 
were a matter of conjecture. Now enterprise, ex- 
perience and science have reduced them to fair 
and probable counting-house calculation. Our 
merchants will tell you the productions, and the 
exchangeable value of them, in every country and 
island washed by the waves of the ocean. Nay 
they will give you the price current of every event, 
which may jeopardize property, wherever a sail 
may be spread, or an oar sweep the water. 

They have called the aid of the most powerful 
agents of nature to overcome the opposition of 
winds and currents. It is within the memory of 
all of us, how much the western States suffered to 
transport their produce by water to a market. 
They might sail with ease, and velocity down the 
broad Mississippi. It was the voyage of Avernus, 
"smooth the descent and easy is the way."" But 
Orleans was literally the " bourne from which no 
ocean-traveller returned." Now, the application 
of steam to navigation, seems to have put the wa- 
ters of those mighty rivers into the control of the 
merchants of the west ; and they roll their current 
back to their sources, freighted with the productions 
of the world, with as much ease as a boy could tip 
a reed in his hand so as to pour the water out at 
one end or the other, at pleasure. There is no- 
thing like this in any other part of the earth. It is 
an era in the commerce and mechanism of the 
world, the age of the American Fulton. 



10 

Mechanicks and manufactures haVe in their 
progress far out-stript commerce. Forty years ago 
there was not a spindle, worked by water, on this 
side the Atlantick. Since then how immense the 
capital by which spinning and weaving machinery 
are moved ! — How many — how great — how various 
the improvements. The cotton is taken from the 
fields, thrown into these engines of industry, and 
received back again a fabrick fit for consumption. 
As you travel along the banks of our streams, the 
morning sound of our waterfalls is mingled with the 
merry notes of the bell, calling, not the lazy, loung- 
ing monastick to yawn over his matins, but the vi- 
gorous, active manufacturer, to the conduct of the 
spindle and the loom. 

The farmers of Flanders erected a statue in 
honour of him who introduced into their country 
the culture of potatoes. What shall the people of 
Rhode-Island do for him who first brought us the 
knowledge of manufacturing cloth by machinery 
moved by water ? In England, he would, in life, 
be ornamented by a peerage ; — in death, lamented 
by a monument in Westminster Abbey. Let not 
the rich, in his adopted country, envy the products 
of his labours, and his talents : — his extensive opu- 
lence ; — his fair and elevated character. Let the 
poor rise up, and call him blessed ; for he has in- 
troduced a species of industry into our country, 
which furnishes them with labour, food, clothing 
and habitation ; and that too, when the long and 
hungry winters of our climate lock up all other 
employment from them. 

It may be said, I think, without any fair imputa- 
tion of national vanity, that the United States, and 
the State of Rhode-Island in particular, has, during 
the last forty years, made a more respectable pro- 
gress in commerce, mechanicks and manufactures, 
than any other nation or people. 



11 

1 would to God we could say the same thing of 
agriculture. Our merchants carry the goods of all 
nations, who will admit them to their trade ; our 
manufacturers export their finished work to the 
amount of millions. What do our farmers export ? 
Alas ! we do not raise enough for home consump- 
tion. The bread we shall this day eat was grown, 
perhaps, in Virginia. A very great part of the sup- 
ply of our meat, bread, butter, and cheese market, 
is derived from our neighbours. Many tons of ves- 
sels, and much capital, are employed in the impor- 
tation corn and flour trade for home consumption ; 
and many gentlemen have made handsome estates 
in this business. Might not all this have been 
realized by agricultural men, if they would but 
raise these articles on their own lands ? Do not say 
corn and flour cannot be grown in our State, to 
any considerable extent. Our State is peculiarly 
fitted for the growth of Indian-corn, " that prince 
of crops," as it is denominated, by Col. John Tay- 
lor, of Caroline county. Any field which will pro- 
duce fifty bushels of corn, might also produce thir- 
ty bushels of wheat. Wheat grows luxuriantly in 
Maine, Vermont, Canada, Nova-Scotia and Scot- 
land. Can our climate be too far to the north then ? 
It cannot be too southern neither, for, if you run 
down the latitude to the equator, you will find it in 
every parallel, flourishing and abundant, in pro- 
portion to the fertility of the soil. 

As I said before, no country is better circum- 
stanced for agriculture than Rhode-Island. The 
government is perfectly free ; and it is in the hands 
of the great body of the freeholders of lands in the 
State. It is a government of agricultural men, both 
in this State, and in all the other States, and in the 
United States. Whatever benefit agriculture can 
derive from law, may in this State be realized. 
Frederick the Great of Prussia used, annually, to 
expend 300,000/. in the encouragement of agricul- 



12 

ture. He was wont to say to his parsimonious 
courtiers, who might think this liberality better be- 
stowed on them, that he was but spreading his 
manure for a next year's harvest ; and he did in- 
deed reap it. For, without oppressing his peo- 
ple, and after sustaining numerous, heavy, and 
sometimes, very disastrous wars, he left to his 
successour a treasure of 53,280,000 dollars. If it 
may be questioned, whether government should 
encourage one kind of industry more than another, 
yet it cannot be doubted, that a wise government, 
should encourage all. Arts of utility should grow 
up together ; and so they do, when unaided. But 
then it is with frequent obstruction, and sometimes, 
some of them, are nearly extirpated, by adverse 
events. But let them be nurtured by the fostering 
hand of government, and they flourish indeed ; 
and soon become the strength, the defence, and the 
ornament of the State. 

On this subject of encouraging agriculture by go- 
vernment 1 cannot do better than speak the words 
of the celebrated Watson, bishop of Landaff: he 
says, " the agricultural improvements, which have 
hitherto taken place (in England) amongst us, 
have been by the expenditure of private wealth ; 
but the country cannot be brought to that per- 
fection of cultivation of which it is capable, unless 
individual efforts are aided and accellerated by 
publick wisdom and munificence. I boast (says 
he) not of any particular patriotism, but 1 would 
willingly pay my share of 20 or 30 millions of 
pounds sterling of publick money to be appropri- 
ated by the legislature to the agricultural im- 
provement of Great-Britain and Ireland. This 
appears to me an object of far nearer concern to 
our independence as a nation, than any exten- 
sion of commerce or an acquisition of distant ter- 
ritory ever can be. If the time had fully come 
when an unproductive acre of land could not be 
found in either of these our fortunate islands we 



13 

should then have food within ourselves for the 
annual sustenance of at least thirty millions of 
people ; and with a population of thirty millions, 
what power in Europe or what combination of 
powers will dare attempt our subjugation." 

It is not for me to suggest, in what way the legis- 
lature of our State should encourage Agriculture; 
but I would observe that, in many other States, so- 
cieties for the encouragement of domestick indus- 
try are under the immediate patronage, of the go- 
vernment ; and funds are appropriated to their be- 
nefit in every county, so soon as they by their own 
means shall raise a fund of a certain amount. 

What are most wanted in our country are agri- 
cultural books — improved instruments of husband- 
ry — a general emulation to acquire knowledge of 
the best modes of farming — and a greater, a much 
greater, appropriation of capital to the business. 
Do not suffer your prejudices to be awakened 
when I mention books. Every other art and sci- 
ence is now to be found in the books, which have 
been written by the great masters of those arts and 
vsciences. If you wish to acquire knowledge in 
merchandise, mechanicks, manufactures, law, me- 
dicine, theology, mathematicks, geography, or any 
other of the great sciences of utility or ornament, 
you get books. Why should agricultural men dis- 
dain to be taught by the wisdom of the sages and 
practitioners of the art, who have lived before 
them ? Their knowledge has been committed to 
books; and these may, as easily be obtained in 
other countries, as we can here obtain the New- 
York primer, or Mr. Aldens' Columbian exercises. 
I agree they are scarce here and that is the great 
cause why we are so little acquainted with the agri- 
culture of other countries or with the principles 
of the art in our own. — When I have inquired for 
agricultural books, I have been told that there 
was no call for them and that therefore booksellers 
did not put them on their shelves. 



14 

More, and different, and better agricultural instru- 
ments are much needed. Our ploughs are far from 
the best; our harrows quite indifferent; rollers, 
cleaning rakes, scarifiers, drills and thrashing 
machines are, I believe, not used at all in the State. 
Let me tell you, that I know the ploughs in use 
among us, are not so good in any one point of view 
as Wood's New-York cast-iron plough. This 
plough may be moved with a power, one quarter 
less, and will then do one quarter more work, than 
any other plough in use in the State. — I know of 
four of these ploughs, which have ploughed at 
least 120 acres this season; and the whole ex- 
pense of keeping them sharp and fit for use has 
not exceeded 56 cents each. The blacksmith's 
bill for ordinary wooden and wrought-iron ploughs, 
for the same work, would have been at least $5 
more for each plough. It will be found that not 
less than is. per acre will be saved by the use of 
these ploughs ; and the work done in every res- 
pect better, than it is done by any other. In the 
State are somewhat more than 85,000 acres of 
land exclusive of the waters. We may reckon 
72,000, as the number of acres contained in the 
farms of the State ; and l-6th part of this, or 12,000 
as under the plough ; so that to save is. per acre, 
on this, will save $8000 to the farms of the State. 
Do not say that these ploughs will break easy. 
I knew one of them last year to break a piece of 
tough sword land of ten acres, well packed with 
paving-stones through its whole texture and which 
had probably not been ploughed for 30 years. It 
was drawn by six oxen and did the work well. 
The same plough and team broke a piece of new 
ground thick with green white-Oak stumps. It 
stood both of these severe operations. Another of 
these ploughs I have seen repeatedly bring to a dead 
stand against a rock, a pair of strong horses mov- 
ing at aquick step and ploughing a clover lea in 
the dry est time of last year's summer. 



15 

Scarifiers are instruments calculated to do the 
work of a plough and a harrow. They are in com- 
mon use in England. I know of but one in this 
part of the country. In Scotland they make them 
entirely of cast-iron. In all lands free of stone or 
where the stones are loose and not too large to pass 
between the shares and teeth and on which a crop 
has been raised, a man and a pair of horses or a 
pair of such oxen as work the Smithfield lime 
wagons, will prepare the ground and get in the 
grain on 30 acres in a week. In England a man 
with 4 horses and the broad scarifier has been 
known to do 60 acres of wheat in a week. 

In the common method of doing this work two 
men or one man and a boy, with a pair of oxen and 
a horse are employed and they hardly finish an acre 
per day. It is then to be harrowed or bushed or 
both. What will it all amount to ? I have known 
this year 15s. given for getting in oats on Indian 
hills. Perhaps it was rather too high. If done 
with the scarifier it will not cost 2s. per acre. 
The use of the scarifier would save to the agri- 
culturalists of the State $10,000 per annum. 

The heavy roller is an instrument of great utili- 
ty. It reduces clods — pulverizes the top of the 
ground — levels and smooths incomparably better 
than any other instrument. When a field is clear- 
ed of the larger stones and mellowed sufficiently 
deep for a crop of grain, this instrument sinks eve- 
ry other stone below the course of the scythe, and 
saves the expensive task of gathering them from 
the grass which every farming man who has been a 
boy may know, is so toilsome and tedious. 

Could I persuade the farmers of this State to in- 
troduce the culture of root crops for feeding stock, 
I should recommend to them the use of the drill. 
It will perform the labour of ten men. 

Thrashing mills are very common among En- 
glish and Scotch farmers, and are far more ex- 



16 

peditious than the flail or even that filthy prac- 
tice of treading out grain with cattle. A four 
horse mill will thrash and clean 600 bushels in 
ten hours. It is a fact known to farmers who 
use this machine that l-20th more grain is obtain- 
ed from the same quantity of straw by it, than 
by any other method of thrashing. 

Mr. Brown of Markle, in his treatise on rural 
affairs, presents the following estimate of profit 
which might be derived to the English publick by 
the universal adoption of thrashing-mills : he calcu- 
lates, 

1 . The No. acres producing grain in Great-Britain, 8,000,000 

2. Average production in qu. at 3 qrs. per acre, 24,000,000 

3. The increased quantity of grain 1-20, 1,200,000 

4. The value of that increased quan. at 40s. per qu. 2,400,000 

5. Saving in expenses of labour at Is. per qu. 1,200,000 

6. Total profit per annum, 3,600,000 

It is not wonderful then, says Sir John Sinclair, 
that he should pronounce the thrashing-mill the 
most important machine in the farmer's possession 
and the greatest improvement that has been intro- 
duced into Great-Britain during the present age. 

The introduction of all these implements into 
the farming of this State would save the agricultu- 
ral interests not less than $50,000 annually. This 
would add considerably to the capital already ap- 
propriated to that department of industry. 

On the subject of agricultural capital I fear the 
most of our farmers will not willingly agree with the 
experience of the best farmers in this and other 
countries. I need not tell such men as I am ad- 
dressing, that every branch of industry will flourish 
in proportion as it shall be well or ill supported by 
capital. If factories and ships cannot be moved 
without this great impetus, neither can the plough 
be put in motion without it. It is the great vital 
principle giving life and motion to human labour 
and accelerating and multiplying all its various 
productions. 



17 

Some travellers who have passed through the 
finest districts of France are charmed with its ag- 
riculture ; but those who have inspected the whole 
kingdom, know its immense inferiority to England. 
France is a land of vineyards and olives ; England 
of wool, wheat and beef. But nothing, it is be- 
lieved, will so strongly illustrate the difference in 
the agriculture of the two kingdoms, as the differ- 
ence in the capital employed in each. In the Uni- 
ted Kingdom of Great-Britain are 98,000,000 of 
acres, 15,000,000 of people, and 275,000,000 of 
pound sterling employed in farming capital. In 
France are 130,000,000 of acres, 28,000,000 of peo- 
ple, and 262,000,000 of pounds sterling in agricul- 
tural capital. With nearly a third less land and 
but little more than half the population, England 
has 13,000,000 of pounds sterling the superiority 
in capital. This has reference to the circulating 
capital of yearly husbandry. In permanent im- 
provements belonging to tenants and not to land- 
holders, England has almost as many millions more, 
and France almost nothing. These calculations 
have reference to the year 1798. 

Since that period the improvement in English 
agriculture has nearly doubled the capital of that 
kingdom, and nearly a double amount of capital is 
necessary to cultivate an English farm now, to that 
which was used in 1798. From the writings of Sir 
John Sinclair published in 1817, it appears that to 
cultivate a farm of 700 acres in grass and grain, 
according to the improved system of English agri- 
culture, will require a capital of at least $25,000. 
With this capital on an improved farm, at a lease 
of 20 years, a skilful, enterprising, industrious man 
clears 14 per cent, per annum on the whole amount 
of it. 

To cultivate the state of Rhode-Island in such a 
manner would require nearly three millions of dol- 
lars in farming capital, exclusive of the value of the 
3 



18 

lands. I fear the sum employed in that branch ol* 
domestick industry at this time, in the State, is con- 
siderably short of that amount. But suffer me to 
say, that until agriculture is encouraged by a great- 
er appropriation of capital, it cannot reasonably be 
expected to grow and flourish among us. 

You will forgive me, gentlemen, when I say, that 
I fear our system of agriculture is far from being the 
best now in practice among farmers of science and 
skill. It surely does not become me to tell my 
farming fellow-citizens that they are ignorant of 
their trade. But if an English or Scotch farmer 
should remove into this State, with a capital of 
$60,000, intending with 30 of it to purchase a 
farm, and with the other 30 to cultivate that farm, 
do you believe he would manage his farm as we 
do ours ? If so, he might loan or set up a money 
shop with 29000 of it, and still have enough for com- 
mon New-England farming. Yes, such a capital 
would (so he would be told by many sharp men) 
make two good substantial banks, if he would only 
let them call in about fifty of their clever uncles, 
cousins, brothers, fathers and sons to be directors, 
presidents, cashiers, clerks, runners, setters and 
brokers, all of whom they would assure him wished 
to join in banking, because every one of them were 
now much in the way of doing business at banks. 
I think the Scotch or English farmer would say to 
them, that he did not understand banking so well 
as they seemed to understand it, but he had some 
knowledge of farming, and besides he wanted all 
his capital, and wished to hire a few thousand dol- 
lars more to complete the stocking and improve- 
ment of his farm. In managing of it, I think he 
would particularly attend to enclosing, clearing, 
and draining, a course of crops, and a system of 
manuring. 

The enclosing his farm would be governed by 
the materials on the land, the nature of the soil. 



19 

and the course of crops to be pursued. I will not 
believe such a man would buy a farm without be- 
ing satisfied that he could render every acre of it 
practicable to the plough. If his lands abounded 
in stone, his fences would be made of that material ; 
if not, be assured that ditches, and thorn hedges 
would form the outlines of all his fields. This kind 
of fence is less expensive than posts and rails, and 
as durable as trees continually growing can render 
it. The beauty, strength and efficiency of these 
fences cannot be exceeded. The finest walls will 
sometimes be leaped by sheep or cattle, but these 
hedges are impassable by any animal unaided by 
wings. 

In dividing a farm into separate enclosures the 
clays should be separated from the sands, for these 
require different crops and different treatment. 
Some tracts of land are most productive in perpet- 
ual meadow, and some in the convertible course of 
tillage, and perhaps all light lands, unless where 
consolidating manures may be easily obtained, 
should be pastured one or more years in the course 
of every rotation. Although large farms should have 
large fields, yet small ones need not have propor- 
tionally small fields, for the same field may be ap- 
propriated to different crops in the course, and 
the expense of division fences saved. 

Clearing is ths next subject of attention after en- 
closing, and where the land abounds in stone, it is 
performed at the same time ; for by clearing, an 
English farmer means not only extirpating trees and 
bushes, but also removing rocks and stones, or 
whatever will obstruct the course of the plough. 
This at first view seems like a labour of Hercules, 
and hardly practicable in some places. But when 
land is covered with a forest of 100 cords of wood 
to an acre, is it not an immense labour to reduce it 
to cultivation ? This, however, is readily done, 
because it is impossible to crop the land without 



20 

doing it. Let us but believe that we cannot cul- 
tivate our fields until we clear them of all fast 
stones, and all those too large to pass freely be- 
tween the teeth of a horse harrow, and we shall 
set ourselves about removing these obstructions 
with the same unconquerable perseverance with 
which a New-England man first lays his axe to the 
root of the oak in the forest of Ohio. If the ex- 
pense of removing rocks and stones should be $50 
per acre, these obstructions, when removed, are 
worth the money for erecting fence, and the whole 
cost will be saved in the course of the first seven 
years' rotation of crops. 

Draining is a subject of great importance to the 
Rhode-Island farmer, for in our burning climate 
those are the best lands which are reclaimed from 
the water. Moist clays, bogs and morasses, are bet- 
ter for the plough than for timber; but these 
must first be drained. Draining must be conduct- 
ed on geological principles, or the labour is lost. 
The common method is to run a ditch through the 
lowest part of the land intended to be drained, and 
because this fe never found effectual, it is conclud- 
ed that the land cannot be laid dry by ditching. 

Men of science will assure you, both on princi- 
ple and from practice, that in all places where 
there is a sufficient fall, any piece of land may be 
as effectually drained as a pond may be. Such 
men tell us, and experience tells us the same, that 
the earth is disposed in layers or strata. It may 
be of loam, of clay, of sand, of gravel, coal, slate, 
oar. These strata spread themselves over the 
level parts of the earth, and up acclivities with 
much uniformity. But as you approach the tops 
of hills and mountains, the upper strata and espe- 
cially the very upper, are broken and separated ; 
and upon opening the earth will be found to stand 
somewhat on edge, or at an angle, more or less in- 
clining to the zenith as the hill is more or less ele- 
vated. Thus if you take a two feet globe, and cut 



21 

a piece of morocco leather just large enough to 
cap it from the pole to the equator, and having 
tacked this piece upon the globe, cut five other 
pieces of exactly the same size, jou will find the 
two or three last pieces will not reach down to the 
equator ; but draw your knife across them two or 
three different ways, so as to cut them through at 
the pole, and you may tack them down at the 
equator, in a line with the first piece; then turn- 
ing the globe so that the pole will be exactly on the 
top, pour water upon it and you will find it passing 
into the cuts made witli your knife, and running 
out between the different layers of leather at the 
equator. 

This, perhaps, is a pretty correct representation 
of high and low land as it respects water falling 
from the atmosphere. The water ascending in va- 
pour, is condensed about the cold region of hill 
and mountain tops ; and falling upon them, passes 
through the broken strata of their tops, and run- 
ning down between the different layers, sometimes 
breaks out upon the mountain or hill's side, in 
springs, but most commonly, issuing from their 
bases, forms rills, brooks and rivers, or meeting with 
some obstructions, spreads itself out into ponds or 
lakes. These in the progress of years by the wash 
of the mountains, the falling of leaves, plants and 
trees,intothem arefilled,andthe decomposingpow- 
ers of the waters, changes all these alluvial materi- 
als into mosses, bogs and morasses. If you would 
drain these, you must remove the cause which has 
supplied this quantity of water. In the experiment 
just now mentioned of the globe, half covered with 
layers of leather, when you have set it up before 
you and have poured the water upon it at the pole 
you will see it gushing out at the equator in a num- 
ber of places. How will you prevent the falling of 
this water upon your table ? Take one more strip of 
your morocco leather, perhaps half an inch wide, 
fold it together edgewise, like the old fashioned 



22 

rand of a shoe, tack the inner edge of it exactly to 
the edge of your first and innermost layer of leath- 
er on your globe ; and forming a conductor, it will 
catch every drop of water which you may pour on 
to your globe. Make a notch with your knife on 
the outer edge of this conductor, and you may run 
all the water into your glass again. 

Do not call this trifling — it illustrates the whole 
great system of draining — a system which if thor- 
oughly understood, and universally practised would 
add one third to the fee simple value of the lands 
in the State. If you draw a ditch round the bot- 
tom of a hill or just where the upland and swamp 
blend themselves, in such a manner as to surround 
the whole marsh and settle it to a sufficient depth, 
you will cut off every watercourse which has form- 
ed the morass. Let this ditch be conducted to the 
lowest point of the ground, and if there be fall 
enough, the whole body, surrounded by the ditch, 
will be left in a condition to become, and to con- 
tinue dry enough for the plough. Throw a row of 
round stones on one side of the bottom of the ditch, 
and a row of flat ones on the other, so as to reach 
and rest upon these — throw in small stone and raise 
them to a small distance below the deepest course 
of the plough — spread the whole with a slight cov- 
ering of straw, and return the earth into the ditch 
again — you will then have a subterraneous water 
course, permanent as your fields, and never to be 
interrupted butby the percussions of such an earth- 
quake as shall not only " topple down towers and 
temples," but shake the very rocks from the bosom 
of the earth. 

The Scotch or English farmer after he had en- 
closed, cleared and drained his farm, would con- 
sider the climate, soil and market, and then deter- 
mine his several crops and their various rotations. 
His broken lands would be appropriated to pas- 
ture. His marshes to perpetual meadows, clays 



23 

and heavy loams to oats, potatoes, wheat and all 
the various grasses for four years — three to be 
mown and one pastured. The light loams, and sandy 
lands would, I think, be appropriated to a seven 
years' rotation. The first two years would be giv- 
en to clover. Immediately after the second year's 
mowing, early in July, the clover lay should be ma- 
nured, neatly ploughed and planted with seven 
thousand plants of green savoy cabbage per acre 
— the rows 4 feet distant — the plants one and an 
half feet. By repeated ploughings and harrow- 
ings, and one hoeing, the crop will be abundant 
and afford a most excellent forage for sheep, cat- 
tle or swine, till the month of February. Wheat 
should be sown and harrowed in about the middle 
of September. Do not think a Scotchman would 
be disheartened by the labour of raising cabbage. 
He would know that a boy 15 years old would 
plant an acre in a day, and that the whole expense 
after the ground is prepared, would not exceed $ 5 
per acre. The crop will vary from 10 to 30 tons 
per acre according to the soil and season. The 
wheat will be harvested by the tenth of July of the 
next year. The ground immediately scarified — 
raked with the rake attached to this instrument — 
and the stubble burned on the land, or carted to 
the barn-yard ibr litter. Furrow the ground 4 feet 
apart, with a double furrow, drop 30 loads of 
manure per acre in these furrows — spread it 
even from end to end of them — turn the earth 
back upon the manure and roll the ridges. On 
these ridges if not after July 15th, drill in ruta 
baga; if much later, set out plants. One or two 
ploughings and harrowings, and one hoeing, will 
be the whole culture. This crop must be drawn 
from the fields in our climate, and cellared or bu- 
ried in the ground. It is a feed for any kind of 
stock equal to carrots or potatoes, and will keep 
sound till the next July. 



24 

The next year the field is manured and appro- 
priated to Indian corn and potatoes. The corn is 
planted north and south in rows six feet apart and 
in hills two feet from each other. The rows of 
potatoes are planted between the rows of corn and 
at exactly the same distance every way. Ploughs 
and harrows may move freely both ways among the 
crops, and one, or at the most, two hoeings will be 
sufficient. 

I am satisfied this is by far the best method of 
cultivating corn and potatoes. Their different 
heights give them enough of sunshine and their 
abundant branches secure to the earth a sufficiency 
of shade ; and I have sometimes thought that a well 
prepared field will produce two entire crops quite 
as abundant as either crop would have been if it 
had occupied the ground alone. The potatoes 
may be harvested in September, and the ground 
between the rows of com harrowed in to rye. 

When this crop is cradled from the ground the 
next year, let it be furrowed three feet apart — ma- 
nured in the furrows with 20 loads of compost 
per acre, the earth turned back upon it, the ridges 
rolled, and two rows of turnips drilled upon each 
ridge. These turnips should be thinned to 10 
inches apart in the rows, but neither be ploughed 
or hoed. 

The next year this field should be manured with 
25 loads per acre of compost — the ground well 
ploughed to the depth of 10 inches, and scarified 
until perfectly mellow, rolled and made smooth, 
and then drilled with carrot seed, at two feet dis- 
tant, row from row and the work finished by the 
first week in June. This crop should be repeat- 
edly ploughed and harrowed, hand-hoed twice 
and thinned to three inches, plant from plant. — 
The expense after the ground is prepared, will not 
exceed % 7 per acre, and the crop, if well conduct- 
ed, exceed 500 bushels. I have seen 600 on three 



25 

fourths of an acre, and I do not doubt that this year 
I have seen two acres out of six which will produce 
fifteen hundred bushels. No crop better than this 
rewards the labour of the husbandman. It is in 
all respects superiour to potatoes, which have long- 
been considered the principal root-crop of New- 
England. It is more abundant in product, requires 
less labour, is more easily preserved, for consider- 
able frosts do not injure it, and it affords, in its na- 
tural state, a more abundant and better nutriment 
for all domestick animals. 

The next year the ground must be given to clo- 
ver seed, with oats or barley, sown in the spring, 
or, after either of these crops have been taken 
from the land in mid July, plough in the stubble, 
sow your clover seed and oats with it, to be mown 
in October for forage. Either of these methods 
will do ; but if the land be rich, as it must be in this 
rotation, the last is much the most profitable ; and 
the young clover is much less liable to be ruined 
by the frost of winter, than by the burning suns of 
summer. 

This rotation I think a Scotch or English farmer 
would follow, so soon as he should understand our 
soil and climate. It is nearly one hundred per 
cent, superiour to any thing which is or can be 
done in England or Scotland. It will give thirteen 
crops in seven years. 

This system too embraces the great principle 
of all rotations, " never let two white crops suc- 
ceed each other on the same land." But it can- 
not be conducted without a large quantity of ma- 
nure. 

To this great object the farmers whom I have 
been mentioning would give a most devout atten- 
tion. On this part of the subject, it is possible the 
nasal criticism of fastidiousness may be offended. 
But if delicacy shudder at the name of manure, let 
her learn, that the very gales of Arabia, which " far 
4 



26 

off make old ocean smile," would become arid and 
scentless as the simoon, were it not for this all in- 
vigorating principle. All matter is probably uni- 
form in its original state, and the most fascinating 
and most loathsome masses of it, when reduced to 
their primitive condition, exhibit the same ele- 
ments. The diamond blazing on the diadem of 
royalty, may have ripened into brilliancy from the 
cindered and charred carcasses of trees and ani- 
mals ; and the rose blushing on the bosom of beau- 
ty, has doubtless stolen its fragrance from the elab- 
orated effluvia of reeking offal. Do not let us mor- 
tals, inch high only as we are, and sprung from the 
dust but yesterday, greatly marvel at the quality of 
food which our parent earth is hourly swallowing. 
She does indeed like a fond mother feed and nour- 
ish all her children, in all their various families of 
plants, trees and animals, and then like a cruel can- 
nibal she feeds and fattens upon them. Not only 
the humble flower and the lofty oak, but the eye 
that sparkles and the cheek that blooms, may go 
the course through which Hamlet traces his king> 
and 

" Great Alexander dead and turned to clay,. 
" May stop a hole to keep the wind away." 

All organized, material substances must submit 
to the great law of perpetual mutation, 

" Like bubbles on the sea of matter borne," 
" They rise, they break, and to the sea return." 

The fop and the dandy may start and put his 
handkerchief to his prominent feature, when 
masses of the fertilizing principle pass " between 
the wind and his nobility," but the philosophick 
agriculturalist will look on them as the great col- 
lections of rich ore, to be elaborated by the earth 
into abundant harvests of golden grain. 

On this part of J;he subject, I had intended to 
detail whatever reading, instruction or experience 



27 

have thrown m my way, concerning the great prin- 
ciple of fertilization, the various sources from which 
it may be derived, and the application of it to dif- 
ferent soils and productions. It may not now for 
want of time be done ; but I cannot in justice pass 
it, without some general observations. 

By the principles of nature all things capable of 
dissolution are reduced to it, by air, heat and moist- 
ure exciting a fermentation in them. Whatsoever 
is perishable on the whole face of the earth, is, by 
certain chemical qualities in the soil, transmuted 
into the means of producing food for plants. Things 
most loathsome to the senses pass through this 
great laboratory, into all that regales and delights 
them. An universal principle of dissolution and 
animation pervades the world, and nothing that 
perishes can be finally lost from the great mass of 
material nature. Whatever of animal or vegetable 
substance may be thrown on the streams of rivers, 
or immersed in the, main ocean, is, after being 
washed into other forms, deposited on their banks 
or shores, or aiding the growth of marine vegeta- 
bles, is by the waves driven to land, and may be 
carried up again to renovate the soil. Every veg- 
etable and every animal perspires many times its 
weight, in the course of its existence. Around all 
material substances in a state of dissolution, there 
is a thick atmosphere of the most volatile particles 
of them. These are all carried off in the air, and 
mingling with the moist part of it, alight in dews or 
descend in showers, to enrich the earth. The air, 
the earth and water thus unite in one continued ef- 
fort to give verdure, and bloom, and fertility, and 
if possible, perpetual youth to the world. Were it 
not for the success of this effort, the goodly crea- 
tion had long ago become a " sterile promontory." 
Take most of the habitable parts of it, and many of 
them have for thousands of years been scourged 
with a most exhausting succession of crops; yet not- 



28 

withstanding all this, and all the negligence of their 
cultivators in collecting manure to fertilize them, 
they still continue to reward the husbandman with 
a rich harvest Sicily was the granary of Rome, 
then more populous than Paris now, and at a time 
too when that island had more inhabitants, in all 
probability, than are now' contained in New-Eng- 
land. It has been ever since, and is at this day, 
quite as productive as formerly. The quantity of 
wheat produced on a single acre of this island, 
since its first cultivation, must be almost incalcu- 
lable. What could have supplied this immense 
quantity of vegetable food ? Surely not the ma- 
nures spread on the ground by the labourers ; nor 
are the Sicilians more skilful husbandmen than 
can be found in other nations. No soil can of it- 
self be perpetually fertile. Whence then this con- 
tinued productiveness ? Nature is constantly mak- 
ing an effort to overcome the ravages of man, and 
to restore herself to her original condition. In 
some places it is more, in some less, vigorous. — 
Parts of the earth are found where it can give per- 
petual fertility ; in other regions several years are 
required to restore exhausted lands, and all that 
ever were fertile would, if left to themselves, in 
time become so again, by the aid of these mighty 
agents of nature. 

The earth was once a garden ; not a dead un- 
varied level like the shores of the Nile. Lybia had 
then its wastes of sand. Europe was covered with 
green fields, American mountains heaved their 
snowy heads to the clouds. The brown regions 
of Asia were spread out into immeasurable plains : 
rivers then as now swept along in silent streams, 
or thundered down in cataracts, and ocean rolled 
his mighty continence of waters, and with his bil- 
lows laved all the shores of the globe. This was 
indeed a garden, rich in all the varieties which 
could be spread upon it by that hand which gar- 



29 

nished the heavens. Man, awaking from the dust, 
gazed on all things round him, and if not satisfied 
with what his eye could reach, might in fancy lift 
himself from the hill-top he had climbed, and look 
down on the globe rolling beneath his feet, and pre- 
senting to his eye all the rich regions of the earth. 
How naturally did he exclaim, 

" Needs must the Power 

" That made us, and for us this ample world, 

" Be infinitely good." 

This world might still be a garden ; the curse of 
human disobedience was not spread out upon the 
soil — no ; man, who was by heaven placed in this 
garden to dress and tend it, became by disobedience 
what he is now, unmindful of this great command, 
and scourged some parts of it down to barrenness, 
and suffered others to grow up into weeds and 
briars and brambles. The Power that rules us 
produces all effects by general laws. It is the duty 
of man to bring particular cases with the influence 
of them. This requires labour, but Paradise itself 
was not exempt from it. We have a country grate- 
ful to the hand of cultivation, genial suns, refresh- 
ing dews, enriching showers, various soils, and 
abundant materials to restore fertility to them when 
exhausted. Let every hill and vale and plain teem 
with the most abundant harvest ; no surplusage 
will be left to perish on our hands. Only drive 
violence and robbery from the great highway of na- 
tions, our commerce unrestrained will unite these 
shores with other continents, feed and clothe the 
people of a thousand realms with the harvest of 
American fields and the fabricks of American 
looms, and in exchange pour into the lap of our 
country the wealth of every quarter of the globe. 



crtHJBB 



Of the Rhode-Island Society for the Encoorage- 

ment of Domestick Industry, for the 

present year. 

JAMES RHODES, President. 
SAMUEL SLATER, 1st,) 
JAMES D. WOLF, 2d, > Vice-Presidents. 
SAMUEL KING, 3d, } 

Stanford Newel, Treasurer. 
William E. Richmond, Secretary. 

Standing Committee. 



PHILIP ALLEN, 
JESSE TOURTELLOTT, 
DUTEE ARNOLD, 
RICHARD ANTHONY, 
DEXTER THURBER, 
SAMUEL GREENE, 
CHRISTOPHER RHODES, 
ALBERT C. GREENE, 
THOMAS BUFFUM, 
JEREMIAH THURSTON, 
WILLIAM WILKINSON, 
NATHAN BOWEN, 
CHARLES DYER, 
FREEBORN SISSON, 



ELISHA OLNBY, 
JESSE BROWN, 
JOHN JENCKES, 
GEORGE D'WOLF, 
STEPHEN T. NORTHAM. 
JOHN HOWL AND, 
JOSEPH S. COOKE, 
JOHN B. FRANCIS, 
GIDEON SPENCER, 
WILLIAM HARRIS, 
GEORGE W. TILLING - 

HAST, and 
ASHER BOBBIN 3 . 






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